The announcement comes ahead of the summit of NATO leaders, which will be held on Thursday March 24 in Brussels, and will be marked by a videoconference intervention by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensk at a press conference on Wednesday March 23 March, the Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg, secretary general of the international organization, announced that the latter woulddeploy four new battlegroups in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia, to strengthen its defenses against Russia on its eastern flank. “NATO leaders will decide at their summit tomorrow to strengthen the defense posture with four new battlegroups (…), bringing to eight the battlegroups deployed from the Baltic to the Black Sea”he detailed.
The Alliance also has “plans to protect all allies against attack with nuclear weapons”he added. “Russia must stop this dangerous rhetoric and understand that a nuclear war should never be fought and that it can never win a nuclear war”he argued.
“NATO supports Ukraine in its right to self-defense, but it is not a party to the conflict and does not want the conflict to become a war between NATO and Russia”, insisted Jens Stoltenberg. For this reason, “NATO will not send troops to Ukraine and will not impose a no-fly zone”, he explained. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly called for the establishment of such a zone.
“NATO allies have stepped up their support for Ukraine, including providing advanced air defense systems, anti-tank systems, different types of weapons and ammunition, and I expect allies to consider how they can step up their efforts and provide more equipment for protection and defense against chemical weapons”he specified.
Jens Stoltenberg has finally denounced “the political support given to Russia by China, including by spreading outright lies and disinformation” and “the possibility that Beijing provides material support for the invasion of Ukraine (…) I expect Alliance leaders to call on China to refrain from supporting Russia’s war effort and join the rest of the world in calling for an immediate end to this war.” he added.